Juan Bosch Interviewer: Lloyd N. Cutler Date of Interview: June 9, 1964 Location: Washington, D.C

Juan Bosch, Oral History Interview – 6/9/1964 Administrative Information Creator: Juan Bosch Interviewer: Lloyd N. Cutler Date of Interview: June 9, 1964 Location: Washington, D.C. Length: 23 pages Biographical Note Bosch, president of the Dominican Republic in 1963, discusses coups and revolutions in Cuba, Brazil, and other Latin American countries; the United States’ relationship with the Dominican Republic; and the Alliance for Progress, among other issues. Access Open. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed on January 27, 1967, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States Government. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. Copyright The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excesses of “fair use,” that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. The copyright law extends its protection to unpublished works from the moment of creation in a tangible form. Direct your questions concerning copyright to the reference staff. Transcript of Oral History Interview These electronic documents were created from transcripts available in the research room of the John F. Kennedy Library. The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the Library and consult the transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation Juan Bosch, recorded interview by Lloyd N. Cutler, June 9, 1964, (page number), John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program. Juan Bosch Table of Contents Page Topic 1 Meeting John F. Kennedy (JFK) in January 1963 5 Cuba 7 Brazil 9 JFK’s opposition to revolutions 11 JFK’s death 12 Reasons for frequent coups and revolutions in Latin America 13 Bosch’s attempts at political reconciliation in the Dominican Republic 15 Ways to foster democracy and capitalism in Latin America 17 Alliance for Progress 19, 22 Latin America’s views of JFK and the U.S. 21 Lyndon Baines Johnson and Latin America Oral History Interview with Juan Bosch Former President of the Dominican Republic June 9, 1964 Washington, D.C. By Lloyd N. Cutler For the John F. Kennedy Library CUTLER: My name is Lloyd Cutler, and I am speaking to Mr. Juan Bosch, former President of the Dominican Republic. Juan, when did you first meet President Kennedy [John F. Kennedy]? BOSCH: Well, I came to Washington and was in the White House early in January, 1963. I came as President-elect of the Dominican Republic, and I had a talk with President Kennedy that lasted one hour and fifteen minutes. CUTLER: Was he the kind of man that you expected to find as the President? BOSCH: No, I knew President Kennedy through his book Profiles in Courage. I knew him from the statements he made, first as a presidential candidate, and then as President of the Republic, and I knew him from him inaugural address. I was unprepared to find a young man who had a universal concept of his functions as the head of the United States Government and who saw Latin American problems from a point of view that, in my judgment, no other American Chief of State had had. This was my personal impression of the rare, I repeat, almost unprecedented case of a man who did not represent the abstract concept of the State, but who [-1-] imparted a new dimension to the governing function, and that dimension, in my opinion, was the result of his sensitivity, a rare, very masculine, very virile sensitivity. I would say that President Kennedy loved his country, the United States, as if the United States had been really a physical being, his mother, father, or older brother. And he had a guilt complex about what the United States may have done to the detriment of other countries in the past. The impression he made on me…. Of course, I had formed an image of President Kennedy on the basis of all those statements. But when I met President Kennedy, I found myself in the presence of a human being far more intense than I had expected—a type of Chief of State never before known, I believe, in United States history, and perhaps even in the history of Europe, perhaps in the Western world, since the days of Greece; there may have been a few like him, but not in modern times, because the head of government usually places the interests of the state above his personality and his personal feelings. He represents an abstract value, which is the State. In my judgment, this was not true in President Kennedy’s case. He tried to rectify all the damage the United States may have caused and to create a new image of his country. And this profound identification, so deeply felt, between a head of State and his people had never before occurred, I believe, in the history of his country, not even in the case of Abraham Lincoln. CUTLER: As a Dominican exile and democrat and an opponent of the Trujillo Regime [Rafael Trujillo], what have you thought of the attitude of the United States, of the policy of the United States before President Kennedy? BOSCH: There had always been a policy (in the time of Roosevelt [Franklin Delano Roosevelt], for instance) typical of those Chiefs of State who represent the State as an abstract value. President Roosevelt, who inaugurated the Good Neighbor policy, failed to convert his thinking into action, because, to President Roosevelt, the interests of the United States were above everything else. Mr. Truman [Harry S. Truman] followed more or less President Roosevelt’s policy. Mr. Eisenhower [Dwight D. Eisenhower], toward the end of his administration, wanted to adopt a policy of cool relations with Trujillo, but actually [-2-] Trujillo had to face this new kind of Chief of State, President Kennedy. And President Kennedy wanted—in the case of the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Argentina, and Cuba—as I said, to erase the image of a great country that accepted a situation but made no attempt to rectify it, the situation beyond its border. That is to say, President Roosevelt, President Truman, and President Eisenhower would say, more or less, the Dominican situation is there, and we shall put up with that situation. Of course, this concept of President Kennedy’s attitude was a concept that I formed of him after meeting with him for an hour and fifteen minutes, and this impression was created not only by what he said, but by his attitude. He was a man whose attitude was one of compassion, something that was hardly to be expected between a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the Dominican Republic or of Africa. I should mention that, in our conversation, during the many points we discussed, there was a moment when we spoke of the war danger, and, at that moment, President Kennedy reacted as if war, the idea that war could reach America, not the United States, but Latin America, pained him personally. It hurt him as much as it could hurt me, a Latin American. CUTLER: Did you have the feeling in the election that the United States was favoring your opponents? BOSCH: Yes, we had the impression that there were interests in the United States helping our opponents. There were no concrete facts, but we could not fail to note in the press dispatches, for instance, that they were excessively favorable to forces that we knew were in the minority in comparison with our party. And we also noted the conduct of certain diplomatic officials in the United States. But I must say that immediately after the elections were over, I noticed a truly sincere willingness on the part of the White House, not just President Kennedy, but also his assistants, to help. And I must say that—you know this very well, because you were one of those who took part in the task of helping the Dominican Government, which I headed—there was something in the conduct of Ambassador Martin, naturally in that of Mr. Rusk [Dean Rusk], Teddy Moscoso [Teodoro Moscoso], the employees of the Alliance for Progress, Mr. Williams, for instance, but I knew what it was and was [-3-] aware that the impulse behind that attitude had a central focus, and that center was called John Fitzgerald Kennedy. CUTLER: When you came to the United States in February, 1963, I guess in January… BOSCH: In January. CUTLER: January. At the time I saw you I got the feeling that you did not fully trust the United States and our Government, Mr. Kennedy’s Government. What happened in your meeting with the President and with Ralph Dungan [Ralph A. Dungan] and his other assistants that gave you confidence? BOSCH: Well, as I explained before, I found myself in the presence of a Chief of State who was not a president of the United States ready to defend the interests of a great country without taking into the slightest consideration the interests and rights of a small country like mine.

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